Hello and welcome to the first tutorial in our series Polymer Clay Magic: From Concept to Character. I’m Liz Morris, artist and founder of Peppermint Rose Productions. If you've ever wondered how professional animation artists at Disney or stop motion artists at Laika come up with all these interesting character design styles that are so unique and beautifully cohesive, you're not alone. I always wanted my own character sculpts to have those special qualities, so I read a LOT of books on character design and color theory. I soon noticed similar themes throughout them all. Here I'll share what I've learned, along with my own approach. We'll go over everything from inspiration, planning, tools and techniques to finally printing your design for sculpting reference. And of course - how to add whimsical elements and charm to all your polymer clay character designs!
Before we start, let's address whether you should even do a concept drawing or just get right into sculpting - there is no rule that says you have to do either. Some artists are more comfortable jumping straight into sculpting and are brilliant at coming up with a design organically. I love to draw, so I usually sketch out my concepts before sculpting, but there are moments I'll jump in just to see what character emerges. But my guess is if you’re reading this, you’re probably looking to design your characters in advance. So, let's get to it!
Materials
Here are the materials you’ll need for creating your whimsical character design:
· Sketch pad
· Pencils (mechanical or 2H-6B artist pencils)
· Pens (optional)
· Notebook (optional)
· Laptop, PC or iPad (optional)
· Printer (optional)
Paper or Digital?
You can sketch your concept on paper or in Photoshop (or other similar program). Just bear in mind your final design will need to be on physical paper at the correct scale, because you will be using it for reference when building your armature. Typically, I use a sketch pad and pencils to flesh out the concept, clean it up in Photoshop, and then print out for armature reference. If you’re anxious to get to sculpting though (I get it!) then feel free to skip the last section on digital sketching. Just make sure that your paper sketch is the same size that you plan to make the sculpture. This is where digital becomes convenient as you can use the rulers in your preferred software as a guide to scale your sketch to the right size before printing your reference copy. More on that later.
Finding Inspiration for Your Polymer Clay Character Design
Coming up with an original character concept doesn’t have to be super complicated, but there are some important things to know. You'll want to plan out your concept theme - who is your sculpture or figurine going to be? What’s the story or message you want to convey through this character? Is it a redesign of a literary character or historical person?
With an original piece, sometimes a character will spontaneously flow from your brain to your pencil like magic and sometimes, um – it won’t. In these situations, here are some fun ways to get inspired:
1) Keep a notebook or sketchpad for inspirational moments. What types of fairytale or literary characters do you enjoy reading about or watching in movies? Think about a specific historical era and the fashion it’s known for (hello, anything mid-century modern). Jot them down in your notebook and keep them for reference. You can also try listing personality traits you want to explore – start with classic archetypes or juxtapose different traits to make your characters even more interesting. And if it suits your piece, don’t be afraid to add a little humor or emotional expression. Finally, try using Pinterest to make a visual board of character concept art, fashions, historical costumes, etc. to inspire your own original character.
2) Watch other artists and sculptors on YouTube or TikTok. This is one of my favorite time sinks, but a really fun one! Some of my favorite artists are Caroline McFarlane-Watts of Tall Tales Productions who creates whimsical witches and magical creatures. Ace of Clay sculpts original monsters, plus movie and game characters. These artists have a fun and entertaining way of showing their process and are masters of imaginative character sculpts.
3) Take a quick nature walk. Sometimes just breathing fresh air and reflecting on the season you’re in like fall or winter can be enough to inspire a great character.
4) Relax and sleep. Settle into a relaxing space for a quick meditation, or maybe a longer one. Allow your brain some time and space and don’t put too much pressure on yourself. And don’t forget to sleep! That gothic fairy elf you’ve been struggling with might come out just the way you want on paper after some restful shuteye.
TIP: If you're doing a portrait of someone, get reference photos with multiple angles if possible. Then use a compass and pencil to mark the major facial features and their distances to each other on your paper. Compare the photo to your paper as you go. Keep this paper for reference if you plan to exaggerate the features into a whimsical character, so you can keep the essence of the original person intact.
Whimsical Shape Language and Silhouettes
Most professional artists working for major studios like Disney and Dreamworks all use shape language as the building blocks to create their character designs. Though there is much room for higher complexity, the foundational concept is that certain basic shapes communicate different personality traits and you should be able to identify them clearly in the character silhouette. For example, if a character is based on mostly round or circular shapes, it will convey a friendly personality. Think Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, etc.
A character with a square design usually indicates stubbornness or stability. (Carl Frederickson from Pixar’s Up is a classic example) Triangular designs often indicate villainous or mysterious intentions. With my Cheshire Cat design, I wanted him to be mischievous but also friendly, so he has some triangular elements in his ears, eyes and tail, but his rounded cheeks and stomach soften his look. Even his teeth don’t have totally sharp points. It makes him feel approachable but still keeps the mystery.
More whimsical and interesting designs tend to combine shapes or build off the basic ones. Laika Studios (creators of Coraline, Paranorman, and other stop-motion animated films) produces some of the most appealing whimsical characters. Their gorgeous designs are fun and look deceitfully complex (and they are very detailed) yet if you look at the overall silhouettes, they are based on simple combinations of basic shapes.
Here are some of the primary attributes of whimsical character design:
· Asymmetry in body and costume (one eye bigger than the other, one normal arm and one robotic arm, asymmetrical patterns, etc.)
· Juxtaposed lines and curves (back side of the neck straight, opposing side is curved: Pro tip – use straighter lines where the bones are closer to the skin, like the back of an arm. Draw curves on the opposing side where the muscle lives)
· No parallel lines
· Exaggerated proportions of face, body, clothing and accessories
· 3 shape combinations - big, medium and small (i.e. big torso, medium head, small legs)
Quick note on anatomy: I think it's a given that the more you know about anatomy, the better your art will look, and the more confident you will feel exaggerating features for stylized designs. It's a muscle that will develop with practice. I highly recommend studying human and animal anatomy books or better yet, going to a live model class, sketching by observation in a public park, cafe, or sketching animals at a zoo or farm.
Planning Your Color Palette
When developing your character's color palette, think about the tone of your piece. Using the principles of color language, aka color psychology, you'll be able to convey your character’s personality and emotion through individual colors and their combinations. There are many well-known associations:
Red - power, sensuality, boldness
Orange - energy, citrus, autumn
Yellow - happiness, sunshine
Green - grass, eco-friendly, growth
Blue - sadness, calmness, ghostly, ocean
Purple - royal, rich, mysterious
Red and green are typically associated with Christmas, as orange and black are with Halloween. These are very simplistic examples, but there are an outstanding number of combinations that can evoke a variety of emotional tones.
Similarly, understanding color harmony and how to combine hues, values and saturation can make all the difference in whether your piece looks professional or amateur. There are many books on color harmony, but one of my favorite references is the Artists’ Master Series: Color and Light by 3d Total Publishing. It is a hefty book, but it's got everything and more.
It can be helpful to use a pocket color wheel as a guide. Mine has one side with 12 color blocks - primary, secondary and tertiary. The inside wheel helps you mix colors by showing what they look like when adding red, yellow, blue, white, or black. The back side of the color wheel shows 10 base colors and their relationships: complementary (2 opposite colors on the color wheel), split complementary (one base color plus the 2 colors that sit adjacent to the base's complementary color) triad (3 colors, each correlating to points of a triangle on the wheel) or tetrad (4 colors, each correlating to points of a rectangle or square on the wheel). Play around to see what colors fit your character best. But don't forget to watch the tone of your colors. When I first started out, I used to pick really bright, overly saturated colors. It's usually a mistake as they can make your art look too harsh or cartoony. Of course, there are exceptions, and it always depends on your character, but try keeping your basic or local colors in a midtone range - not too bright and not too dark. It's a solid place to start. Then if you like, add highlights and shadows to give your work volume and dimension.
TIP: To pick a color palette with lightning speed, check out the huge library of ready-made ones in Adobe Color. (Download 'Color' right into your Libraries panel from the Creative Cloud app) Or open an inspiring painting or image and use the color picker to grab colors and save each one to the Swatches panel.
Digital Sketching, Scaling and Color
For a digital concept sketch, you’ll need a laptop, PC or iPad with photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop or Procreate. (If you’re on a budget, there are open-source programs such as Gimp.) Take a phone pic of your sketch and open it in your software. (or just start in your program and skip the paper) I’m using Photoshop for our example.
Once you have your sketch open, you'll want to size it to the scale you want your physical sculpture to be.
Hit Ctl+R to open the rulers. (Make sure they are in the measurement you prefer. Go to Edit>Preferences>Units & Rulers to change)
Select the move tool.
Go to the top ruler, then click and drag down a guide to the height you want your physical sculpture to be. For the below example, I want the Mad Hatter to be 7 inches tall, so the guide is lined up to 7 on the left ruler.
Move your character to the top edge of the page, as shown in the example below.
Hit Ctl+T to get a transform box around your character.
Use the corners of the box to scale your character to fit between the top edge of the page and your height guide.
Once your character is at scale, move the sketch back to the center of the page to begin cleaning up your sketch.
Cleaning Up the Sketch
Add a neutral gray layer under the sketch, then drop the opacity of your sketch layer to 30% so the drawing is light but readable.
Add a new layer on top and using any pencil or ink brush you like, draw over the sketch to create clean lines.
Now add a new layer directly below your lines to paint your base colors.
Once your base colors are done, you're technically ready to print. But if you're like me and can't help getting a little fancy and you want to add some highlights and shadows, do this:
Make two copies of the finished color layer and move them above the original.
Place the highlight layer on top and change the mode to Linear Light (or Screen) at 50% opacity and the shadow layer to Color Burn (or Multiply) at 35% opacity. (see image above)
Click the mask icon for each layer and hit Ctl+i to invert the mask.
Ensure you have the mask selected and the foreground color is set to white.
Use an airbrush for a soft look or hard brush for a cel animation style. Begin painting in the light and shadows using the matching base colors, or for some richer variety, pick a secondary color, and very soon your sketch will become luminous.
Once you’re happy with your sketch, export it to a pdf and print out. Make sure your printer settings have “Actual Size” checked instead of “Fit to Page” so the size stays accurate.
You are now ready to sculpt!
Next Steps
I hope this tutorial helped get you started or maybe showed you some new techniques. If you have any questions, please reach out or leave a comment below. Please join us for our next tutorial, Whimsical Wonders: Character Sculpting Basic Techniques, which will be posted on Friday, 11/22/2024. Thanks for being here and see you next week!
Artist and Founder
Peppermint Rose Productions
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